The present invention relates generally to confectionery products. More specifically, the present invention relates to confectionery products that have an outer shell or coating, syrups for creating the outer coatings, and processes for coating the products with the syrups and forming hard outer shells.
A wide variety of types of coated confectionery products are known today. These confectionery products include chewing gum and bubble gum. The gum products generally consist of the water insoluble and a water soluble portion including sweeteners. In a similar vain, it is known to provide a wide variety of different types of chewing gum and bubble gum (hereinafter both generally referred to as “gum” or “chewing gum”). For example, it is also known in creating gum and other confectionery products, to coat the product with an outer or over-coating. The sugar based or sugarless coating can provide an initial sweetness or other desirable property to the consumer, a crunching sensation when chewed by the consumer, and a smooth outer appearance to the product. A number of such chewing gum products are known, such as, for example, the “Chiclets” brand and “Dentyne Ice” brand products.
For coated chewing gums, initially sugar syrups were used to create the coatings or shells. The sugar syrups typically created a product having a smooth appearance, and provided a coating with a crunching sensation to the consumer, as well as an initial burst of sweetness. In recent years, other types of syrups have been utilized for coating gum, such as sugarless syrups.
The coating of pieces or cores of chewing gum is a long and laborious process, involving numerous steps. In order to provide a smooth and thick outer coating, the cores can be subjected to fifty or more separate coating steps. Each of the coating steps includes spraying a syrup material on the cores, tumbling or rotating the cores in an appropriate mechanism, and drying each of the successive coatings with hot air or the like. Often, powdered coatings are utilized to build up an initial coating on the cores, followed by liquid coatings in order to even out and smooth the outer surface. Known coating processes can take up to five to six hours or more in order to produce satisfactory coated chewing gum products.
It would be desirable to improve the coating process and ultimate coated products, as well as increase the speed of the coating process, particularly for chewing gum products. Increasing the speed of the coating process, or increasing the coating capacity, would create a higher throughput of coated products resulting in lower manufacturing and labor costs and increased profits to the manufacturer.